Goals Panel Offers Hints of Shape of 'Report Card'

Washington--Members of the National Education Goals Panel last week
offered hints at what their first "report card" would look like, and
also how they plan to develop standards for measuring student
achievement in the future.

Governor Roy Romer of Colorado, the panel's chairman, also said at a
panel meeting last week that the committee of governors and
Administration officials had agreed to form a "staff working group" to
recommend how the federal government's effort should be assessed on the
first report card.

That issue had threatened to divide the panel along partisan lines,
with Democrats worried that the Administration was trying to escape
accountability for progress on the goals. (See Education Week, April
10, 1991.)

"We are coming to a resolution of the process we are going to use to
get that done," Mr. Romer said last week.

But Governor Booth Gardner of Washington--like Mr. Romer, a
Democrat--indicated that the related issue of whether and how the
re4port card would measure resources devoted to education had not been
resolved.

In discussing what they learned at regional forums over the past
month, most of the panel members expressed pleasure that the goals were
well-received.

"I think two years ago we would have heard a crescendo of objections
to national anything," Mr. Romer said.

But Mr. Gardner noted a common thread of criticism.

"The applause line always came in the same place and the same
context: There's too much emphasis on measurement and not enough on
resources," he said.

Mr. Romer reiterated that he thinks both elements are important.
Republican panel members did not comment.

Report Card's Format

The panel's executive director, Pascal D. Forgione, said the staff
had proposed a format for the first report card, which is due in
September, that would consist of a report divided into sections for
each of the six national education goals adopted last year by the
Administration and the National Governors' Association.

Each section would contain relevant national statistics, a breakdown
of those measurements by state, and "a summary of where we are" in
regard to achieving the goal, Mr. Forgione said.

Mr. Romer said the panel is trying to work out arrangements to "do a
joint report" with the National Assessment of Educational Progress,
which is slated to release its first-ever state-by-state assessment, in
mathematics, shortly before the goals panel's report card is due.

The naep report will also be the first to announce how many students
have demonstrated "basic," "proficient," and "advanced" levels of
achievement on the tests, and Mr. Romer said he would like to include
those breakdowns in the goals panel's report. (See related story, page
1.)

In the long run, panel members said, they would like to gather
groups of "stakeholders" to set standards in each of the subject areas
mentioned in the goal that calls for all students to "demonstrate
competency" in English, mathematics, science, history, and
geography.

They again cited as an example the ongoing efforts of the National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics to set curriculum and
teacher-training standards for their field--although that effort did
not establish the kind of specific achievement standards envisioned by
the goals panel.

"We want to set in motion the kind of thing the math teachers did
for themselves," Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander said.

"This is going to be a bottom-up, participatory process," Mr. Romer
said, responding to concerns expressed by educators at the panel's
forums. "We are not going to impose this from above." (See Education
Week, April 24, 1991.)

"We are going to go to the stakeholders, and together we are going
to decide what the standards are, Mr. Romer said.

"I think who the participants should be is obvious: educators, but
also those who will use the information" in the report cards, such as
colleges, employers, parents, and community leaders, he added.

Vol. 10, Issue 35

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